


Smoke in the Distance

by seimaisin



Series: The Devil Wears a Suit [1]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Addiction, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Mystery, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-21
Updated: 2012-11-21
Packaged: 2017-11-19 04:46:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/569258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seimaisin/pseuds/seimaisin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern day AU. Cullen is a former Templar turned police lieutenant working in Kirkwall's missing persons department. He's taken by surprise when a Grey Warden shows up to ask about one of his cold cases. Because the Grey Wardens are an international agency dedicated to solving magic-related crimes, and there's no evidence that Ninette de Carrac's disappearance had anything to do with magic. Is there?</p><p>Bethany isn't thrilled to be back in Kirkwall, but she has a job to do. The fact that the local cop is also a former Templar makes that job more difficult, but once they discover that Ninette might be connected to a missing mage, she and Cullen agree to work together until they get to the bottom of the mystery.</p><p>There's more to this case than meets the eye, and Cullen and Bethany both have their own personal demons to contend with as they work the case.  But when their case brings them face-to-face with a demon, they discover that they may be a better combination than either of them originally thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smoke in the Distance

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to Cherith and Defira for their love, encouragement, and beta services. And a million thanks to my awesome artist and fanmixer, cheesiestart and nephili, both of whom created wonderful works to go along with my story from what turned out to be only half a draft. They're both amazing. 
> 
> [Art by cheesiestart](http://cheesiestart.tumblr.com/post/36222060994/here-is-my-artist-submission-for-the-dragon-age)   
>  [Fanmix by nephili](http://nephili.tumblr.com/post/36218770921/smoke-in-the-distance-a-fanmix-for)
> 
> Warnings for drug use and PTSD, along with some bastardization of DA2 canon. Story and series title come from "The Devil Wears a Suit" by Kate Miller-Heidke.

Another imperfect specimen. No matter who it was, no matter what he did, none of them ever measured up.

“It’s not your fault,” he told the woman. She sat in the chair in front of him, held in place by a bit of magic that wrapped around her body and created a force field. “She was perfection personified. No one in this world will ever measure up to her.”

That didn’t mean he was going to stop looking, of course. But if he couldn’t find a woman who matched his beloved’s perfection, he could always … rebuild. “Your hands,” he said, picking one up between his and caressing it. “They’re exactly like hers. Such slender, graceful fingers, such soft skin. If I close my eyes, I could imagine I was holding her hand again.” 

He did so, just for a moment. The illusion wouldn’t come, though - the woman’s hands trembled too much, and her skin was too cold. His beloved would never have succumbed to such terror. She was so much better than that. “It’s too bad,” he sighed, stepping backward. “You’re beautiful. One of the most beautiful women I’ve seen in Kirkwall since her death. But you’re not her. You never will be.”

But this woman - like the others, she could be a part of a great work. “Think of it,” he said, as he reached inside his box of tools, “as gaining a piece of immortality.”

She may not be perfect. But her hands made her useful. He could work with that.

*

It wasn’t every day Cullen came back from clearing a case to find a beautiful woman waiting for him in his office.

Quite frankly, the only visitors he usually had - outside of fellow cops - were panicked, angry family members, demanding information. It was the hazard of working in the missing persons department. Maybe, he thought, she was an unusually calm family member. Some of them did hold it together - barely, with restrained tension evident in their every word. They weren’t necessarily easier to deal with than the shouters; he often worried that the calm ones would detonate at any moment. 

This woman - she was none of the above, Cullen slowly realized as he reached his office door. His suspicions were confirmed when she stood and faced him. She was definitely beautiful, with a mass of dark hair piled on top of her head, and piercing amber eyes. She was dressed head to toe in a smart black suit, the only spots of color provided by the red scarf around her throat and the blue and grey badge clipped to her belt.

A Grey Warden. _Fuck._

“Can I help you?” he asked, in what he hoped was a pleasant voice. 

“Lieutenant?” She held out her hand. “Bethany Hawke. I’m sorry to barge in on you like this, but the Captain said it would be okay if I waited in here.”

Cullen tried not to grimace. Captain Vallen was a good commanding officer, and he respected her immensely, but there were times Cullen was tempted to push her out of a window. “What can I do for you, Agent Hawke?”

When Cullen moved past her to sit behind his desk, Agent Hawke sat back down in the visitor’s chair. “I’ve been asked to consult on a missing persons case. The Captain told me that the woman I’m looking for is one of your cold cases, so I’m hoping you might be able to share some information.”

“Really.” Wasn’t that just what he needed - a federal watchdog sent to dog one of his cases, as if he wasn’t competent enough to close them himself. “Which case would that be?”

“Ninette de Carrac.” 

This time, Cullen clearly wasn’t quick enough to conceal his sour face, because Agent Hawke raised an eyebrow at him. “Let me guess. Her husband?”

“I take it you suspect him?”

“If I could find a shred of actual evidence, I’d have him locked in a cage so fast he wouldn’t have time to bitch at me.” Cullen leaned an elbow on his desk and rubbed his forehead. “The only reason she’s still a missing person and not a murder victim is because we haven’t found a body. I’m sure she’s dead, and that he killed her.” 

“It would seem to be the logical conclusion.”

Something about her calm, paired with the very small smile she wore, made Cullen’s skin itch. “Are you going to tell me you have a different theory, based on absolutely no evidence and only the word of a potential murderer?”

“I have no theories at all. That’s why I’m here.”

“Why has this case, out of all the ones sitting over there -” Cullen gestured to an overflowing filing cabinet, “caught the interest of the Wardens?”

Agent Hawke shrugged. “Mr. de Carrac appealed to my commanding officer. His argument was compelling enough to have him send me here to Kirkwall.” At the mention of the city’s name, her calm smile wavered - not much, not in a way that would have been obvious to a casual observer, but Cullen hadn’t gotten to his position by being casual about observing other people. She wasn’t happy to be here. That was interesting, and Cullen filed the thought away. “I intend to interview some of her friends and associates, but it would make my life much easier if you would agree to share your file with me. Also,” she said, her smile widening just a touch, “it would probably get me out of your hair sooner.”

None of that answered Cullen’s question. The Wardens specialized in cases that involved magic or darkspawn, things that spanned international jurisdiction, cases that were impossible for regular authorities to solve. As far as he knew, this case only qualified on the last bit - and that was only because he hadn’t yet found the evidence he knew existed that would prove Ghyslain de Carrac murdered his wife. The man was an asshole, and Ninette was worth a lot of money. Simple motives, even if the solving of it wasn’t so simple. The case certainly didn’t involve anyone anywhere outside of Kirkwall, and there was no magic involved.

… he was almost positive. He should have an instinct for magic; he used to be a Templar, after all. Nothing about the de Carrac case made him itch in the way magic-related crimes tended to. Nothing about the evidence pointed to anything magical, unless Ghyslain had hired a mage to kill his wife for him. Which was unlikely. 

Silently, Cullen cursed Captain Vallen. If he refused the help, he’d never hear the end of it. Easier, then, to just cooperate and hope Agent Hawke figured out she was barking up the wrong tree.. With a sigh, he stood up and walked over to his file cabinet. “You’ll have to read it here,” he said. “You can’t take the file out of the station.”

“Of course.”

When he handed her the file, Agent Hawke nodded her thanks. “Go ahead,” Cullen said, gesturing to the far side of his desk. “I’ve got reports to file.”

He turned to his computer and attempted to ignore the woman sitting across from him. Which was, admittedly, hard to do. She brought her hand up to her mouth as she read, worrying at her bottom lip with one fingertip. Cullen’s thoughts turned briefly to the shape of her mouth - not a good idea, not when she was a federal agent. 

And, he realized, when he saw the small sunburst symbol tattooed on the inside of her wrist, something even more dangerous. “You’re a mage,” he blurted out.

She raised her eyes to look at Cullen. “Yes. Is there a problem?”

“No,” he said, only partially lying. Mages were allowed to be Wardens. But any mage who wasn’t monitored by the Circle - even a Warden - was someone to be wary of. Especially if one was an ex-Templar.

Cullen felt a familiar phantom tingling on his lips. His fingers flexed, wanting to reach for a vial of lyrium that wasn’t there. He’d kicked that habit. He didn’t need it … except, without it, he was far more vulnerable to a mage’s wrath than he had been. Agent Hawke didn’t necessarily look like she was going to produce a knife and perform blood magic right in his office, but he’d learned the hard way that you couldn’t pick out the problem mages, not by sight. Not until it was too late. The woman in front of him was a mage, and an unknown entity. He was a Templar - would always be a Templar, in some way. 

He could almost taste the bitter liquid lyrium on his tongue. Just one vial, and he’d feel that much more confident in his ability to handle this mage if something went wrong. 

Cullen shook his head to clear it. _No. Not again._ One polite Grey Warden was not a reason for a relapse. He could be a normal human being. He could handle himself with the help of a drug. He could give her the benefit of the doubt.

She went back to reading the file, but every so often, she looked back up at Cullen, a curious expression on her face. He, meanwhile, gave up all pretense of working and just studied her. Hoping she’d finish reading soon. That she’d leave and no longer be his problem. 

Finally, she looked up and poked a finger at one of the pages in the file. “Did you ever interview this … Jethann?”

Cullen frowned. “Not myself, no. The guys in Vice were already familiar with him, so they took the interview.”

“Really? I would have thought you’d want to talk to him yourself, given the relationship he and Ninette allegedly had.”

“I trust the Vice cops who did the interview. Besides,” he added, trying not to blush, “the Blooming Rose is a very particular sort of place. It’s better to send people who don’t stand out.”

Agent Hawke ducked her head back down, looking at the file again, but she didn’t quite hide the smile. Cullen just frowned harder. Awesome. He’d been nice enough to let her see his files, and she was going to mock him. 

A few minutes later, she looked back up again. She obviously hesitated, considering what she was about to say. “I’m going to go talk to Jethann,” she said finally. “Do you want to join me?”

“What? Is there something you didn’t find in the file?”

“I don’t know. That’s the problem. I just want to hear what he has to say in person.”

Translated - she didn’t trust Cullen or his colleagues to ask the right questions. “It’s late,” he said, “I’m not sure you want to go to the Blooming Rose right now.”

“I can handle myself.” She stood up. “If you’re not coming, well, then, thank you for your time, and for your files. I appreciate it.”

“Wait.” Cullen sighed. “I’ll come.” Because he’d be damned if he’d let a damned fed one-up him on his own cold case. Especially a mage. If she found out anything new, he wanted to be there to know it.

*

Being back in Kirkwall was bad enough, Bethany thought, without also having to deal with a Templar.

“Former Templar,” Aveline had clarified earlier that day. “Cullen … well, he went through some things when he served in Ferelden. He quit the order, but make no mistake, he still has a Templar’s prejudices.”

“I’ve dealt with worse,” Bethany assured her. And it was true, she’d come up against a lot more resistance than the lieutenant showed. But still, if she’d had the choice, she wouldn’t have been sitting in the front seat of a car while a former Templar stared at the road, ignoring her. Why couldn’t he have remained stubborn enough to just let her go do this interview alone? 

After a few minutes of silence, Bethany gave up and cleared her throat. “Can you tell me why you’re so sure Ghyslain de Carrac killed his wife?”

Cullen glanced over at her. “You read the files. Do you really need me to tell you?”

“I’m interested in your professional observations.” Which was both true and an attempt to assuage his ego. Anything to cut the tension in the car. 

After a long moment, he shrugged. “It’s a classic case. He married into money, and by the testimony of her friends, he liked her bank account more than he liked her. If you believe her best friend, her parents were starting to pressure her to get a divorce, and she may have been listening. The man’s an ass, and while I don’t have any solid evidence, my professional observation -” he looked at her at the phrase, “is that he’s more than capable of killing. I suspect he did it in a fit of anger or passion, and then called in the missing persons report to cover his tracks.”

Bethany didn’t disagree with his assessment - she’d spoken with the man, on the order of her superior officer, and felt like she’d needed a shower after the conversation was over. If it turned out he had killed his wife, she wouldn’t be surprised in the least. But Commander Stroud was convinced, for some reason, that magic was involved in this case. It wasn’t her place to question him, only to look at all the evidence and decide whether or not his suspicions had any merit. 

“Have you searched his home?” she asked. “I didn’t see any references in the file.”

“We were only allowed a preliminary search,” Cullen said, “which is another reason I think he’s got something to hide. We did the initial search of her belongings when he filed the report, but after that, when we went back, he had a lawyer who managed to block all our attempts to get a warrant. Why would he do that if he were innocent?”

“I don’t know,” Bethany said. “But it’s not conclusive. I’ve been asked to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s on this case.” 

“Why?” Cullen tapped an impatient finger on the steering wheel as he watched the red light in front of him. “What about this case is so important that the Wardens would get involved? There’s been no indication of magic anywhere in the evidence. Trust me, I would know.”

“I know.” Bethany took a deep breath. She’d been advised to keep to herself, but she’d never get the help she needed if she didn’t give him at least a little bit. “My commander has been following a lot of cases in Kirkwall over the last few years. He’s got some theories about the current rash of blood mages and other magic that’s been overrunning the city - and before you ask, no, I don’t really know what those theories are. But when he thinks magic is involved in a case, he’s generally right. So when he asks me to go look into something, I go.”

“But he didn’t tell you what, exactly, you were looking for here?”

“He asked me to reexamine the evidence and draw my own conclusions. Without prejudice.”

Cullen hummed and turned back to the road. They were both silent for the last part of the drive, until they pulled into a small parking lot attached to a dingy building. Something in Bethany’s stomach turned over. Everything looked so familiar - as if it hadn’t changed in the past two years. Which, likely, it hadn’t. She could almost hear Isabela’s laugh, see Varric standing in the doorway, slipping the bouncer a few bills to get the whole crew of them in the door. And if she closed her eyes, she could imagine that the person in the seat next to her was her sister, primed for a night of not-quite-legal work around Kirkwall.

“Agent Hawke?”

The spell was broken. “Bethany,” she said automatically. “Please.”

“Bethany.” Cullen’s voice was low, and probably shouldn’t sound as attractive to her as it did, given the circumstances. But that was probably just her nerves talking, she figured. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Let’s go.” 

The inside of the Blooming Rose hadn’t changed, either. Viveka stood at the front bar, staring at a computer screen without much interest. When she looked up, she blinked. “Hey, it’s Bethany, isn’t it?” she said. “You’re -”

“Yeah, it’s me,” Bethany interrupted, before Marian could be brought into the conversation. “It’s been a long time, how are you?”

“Eh, same old, same old.” She looked from Bethany to Cullen and back. “What can I do for you two? Looking for anyone in particular?”

“Yes - but not to hire,” she added hastily, knowing exactly what the speculative look in Viveka’s eyes meant. “We need to talk to Jethann. Is he available?”

Viveka’s eye’s narrowed. “It’s his night off, but he’s around. What do you want with him?”

Bethany put on her best bored-Marian face. “Picked up a job. He may know someone who knows someone, that sort of thing.”

She had no idea whether Viveka - or anyone outside of her sister’s inner circle - had any idea she’d become a Warden. The answer, though, was likely ‘no’, as Viveka relaxed and nodded. “He’s upstairs, on the second floor. If he asks, tell him I sent you.”

“Thanks, Viveka, I owe you one.”

“Come back and actually spend some money, that’ll square us up.” 

Bethany laughed, considering the idea of spending her money at the Rose. Not a horrible idea, she thought, considering the sorry state of her current love life. Maybe a one night romp would do some good. But not tonight. Not while she was on a job, and certainly not while a disapproving police lieutenant looked over her shoulder. 

She turned to look at Cullen as they walked up the stairs. He raised an eyebrow at her. “You’ve been here before?”

She shrugged. “I used to live here. In Kirkwall, I mean.”

“Hmmm.” 

She didn’t volunteer any more information, and he didn’t ask. They found Jethann’s room at the top of the stairs; when they knocked, a small elf with light hair and a pointed nose answered. “It’s my night off,” he said in a bored tone. “Check with Viveka downstairs if you want to book a future appointment.”

“She sent us up, actually.” Bethany thought for a moment, then gave a mental shrug. Better to use whatever advantages she might have. “My name’s Bethany Hawke. I think you might know my sister.”

“Hawke … who, Marian?” Jethann’s eyebrows raised up nearly to his hairline. “Oh, wow, haven’t seen her in forever, not since she moved up to her swanky new house. What’s she want?”

“Nothing. I’m the one who has some questions, if you don’t mind answering.”

“Depends on the questions.”

She nodded. “Can we take this into your room, maybe?”

Jethann looked behind her, to Cullen. “Is your friend coming, too?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Sweetheart, I never mind having two gorgeous people in my room.” He winked at Bethany and opened the door wide enough for both of them to enter. Once the door was closed, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Now, what can I do for you?”

Bethany reached into her pocket and pulled out her badge. “I’m a Grey Warden. I’m looking into the disappearance of Ninette de Carrac, and I heard you knew her.”

To her surprise, Jethann’s face crumpled. “Ninette. Fuck, did you guys find her body or something?”

“No,” Cullen said, before Bethany could open her mouth again, “why, do you know something about it?”

“No,” Jethann responded, shooting a dirty look in Cullen’s direction. “I just know her asshole husband probably killed her, and that’s a fucking tragedy. She was a doll.”

“Was she a client?” Bethany asked.

“Yes. Every Tuesday afternoon, like clockwork, for nearly a year. She had tastes that would have given that husband of hers a heart attack. I loved spending time with her. She was so damned creative.” Jethann gave them a smile that, while it wavered, still spoke of a type of creativity that made Bethany blush. “But she told me a lot about Ghyslain while she was here. He didn’t love her, that was for sure. He only wanted her for her money.”

Bethany opened her mouth to ask another question, but Jethann suddenly frowned and went on. “But, wait, I forgot - there was that Templar …”

“What Templar?” Cullen asked.

“Emeric. He just came by a couple of weeks ago, actually, asking about Ninette. Wouldn’t tell me why he wanted to know. Nice guy, though, handsome for an older man. I would’ve asked him to stay if I thought he would have said yes.” Jethann shrugged. “But he seemed genuinely concerned about Ninette, which was nice. He asked about another woman, too, but it wasn’t anyone I’d ever heard of.” 

“Do you remember the name?” Bethany asked.

Jethann paused for a moment, then shook his head. “Sorry. I’d forgotten about the whole thing until just now. He came by on a busy night, I got a new client not long after he left.” 

A Templar, interested in Ninette de Carrac. That would certainly lend some credence to Stroud’s belief that magic was involved somewhere. Bethany pushed farther. “Did Emeric say anything else to you? Did he give you any idea of what he was going to do next?”

“He did say something about heading to Darktown to check out a lead. Like I said, though, it was a few weeks ago, so I don’t know if he found anything there.” Jethann sighed. “I hope he did. It would be nice to know what happened to Ninette.”

“Was Ninette more than a client?” Cullen asked.

Jethann rolled his eyes. “Listen, I provide a service. Ninette paid me well for it. It’s just nice when I actually like the people who are paying me, and I genuinely liked Ninette. She was one of the best people I knew around here.” He turned away from Cullen and focused his gaze on Bethany. “If you find out what happened to her, will you let me know?”

“Yes,” Bethany said, without thinking. Because anyone who lost someone they cared about - however they cared about them - deserved some closure. Closure she’d never gotten, not for Carver. 

“Thanks.” Jethann smiled. “Tell your sister hello for me, will you? Maybe she should come visit the rest of us peasants again, now that she’s all rich and important.”

Bethany made a noncommittal noise. If she was lucky, she’d get out of this trip to Kirkwall without ever having to speak to Marian. “Thank you for your help,” she said, extending her hand.

Jethann shook it, looking amused at the gesture. “And,” he added, “if you feel like a bit of fun, you should come back and see me, too. I’ll even give you a discount.”

The thought made Bethany smile; she continued to smile as they walked back outside and to the car. She’d never hired someone for sex, and in the end, she really couldn’t picture herself doing so. Not even for someone like Jethann, who seemed like a nice sort of guy, and would probably give a woman her money’s worth. It was momentarily tempting, though, considering how long it had been since her last boyfriend. The life of a Grey Warden wasn’t exactly suited to relationships. Maybe, she thought, she should get used to paying for her companionship. It wasn’t like she was getting much of it for free.

She looked over at Cullen as she slid into the passenger seat of the car. This wasn’t a good line of thinking, not with an attractive man sitting next to her - an unavailable man, at least to her. She knew better than to sleep with Templars. Even ex-Templars. Even if they liked her, which this one clearly didn’t. So thinking about sex with him no farther than a foot away was probably a bad plan.

Speaking of Templars, though … “Do you know this Emeric?” she asked.

He started up the car. “No. I was never a Templar here in Kirkwall, I quit back in Ferelden.” He was silent for a long moment. “I am on decent terms with the Knight Commander, though,” he finally said. “I could ask at the Gallows, find out who he is.”

“You’re going to help, then?”

Cullen sighed. “I’m curious to find out why a Templar has any interest in Ninette.”

“You and me both.” Without warning, Bethany’s stomach rumbled audibly. When was the last time she’d eaten? Embarrassingly, she couldn’t recall. “Would you mind dropping me at my hotel?” she asked. “It’s not far from here.”

After a moment of silence, Cullen looked at her. “Would you like to grab something to eat first?”

“What? With you?”

“Unless you have something better to do.”

“No … no, I don’t.” Well, that was unexpected, Bethany thought. The fact that he wanted to spend any more time with her was … interesting. As was the fact that she was more than happy to spend more time with him. “Sure,” she said, “let’s go.”

*

Cullen wasn’t sure where the invitation had come from. The words were out of his mouth before he had time to analyze the thought. Did he really want to eat dinner with this Warden - a mage, no less? His subconscious apparently thought so.

But, he was interested in talking more with her. Perhaps he could find out more about how the Wardens had known magic was involved in this case. He didn’t buy for a second that Bethany hadn’t known more - especially after finding out a Templar was interested in the case. Cullen had kept this case open for months, running down every lead he could find, and he hadn’t even picked up an inkling. How had Wardens, without any connection to Ninette, known what he didn’t?

Maybe they had connections to Ghyslain. Or Ninette’s family. Either was possible. Cullen wanted to know more. Maybe having dinner with Bethany would bring out more details.

He certainly wasn’t taking her to dinner because she was attractive. He’d fallen into that trap once, with a beautiful mage. He wasn’t making that mistake again.

And if he turned his car north, toward Sundermount Cafe, it was because he knew it would be open late and have good food - not because of its romantic atmosphere. That he’d taken his last date there was just a coincidence.

When he pulled into the parking lot, Bethany eyed the building in front of them, which looked much like an abandoned warehouse. “Where are we going?”

“Just follow me.” 

The entrance was around back; a large metal door led to a staircase down into the basement. The decor changed as soon as the stairs ended; metal and plaster gave way to elegant beige and green. A maitre’d met them a few steps into the hallway - a man Cullen knew by sight. “Good evening. Two for dinner?”

“Yes, thank you, Oliver. A table near the kitchen, please.” Not the back, in the plush booths designed for closeness and flirtation. That was definitely nothing he needed right now. Better to stay in the high-traffic area, where they could sit in chairs across from each other and be professional. 

When they were seated, Bethany looked around the room. “You come here often?”

“Often enough. I don’t live very far from here.”

Her lips quirked upward. “I think Kirkwall cops must make more money than Wardens do. My budget runs more toward fast food and pizza.”

“You pick what’s important to you, I guess. You should see my apartment.” Cullen immediately wanted to bite his tongue. That wasn’t what he meant - not the way that immediately sprung to mind. “I like good food,” he hastened to add.

“So do I. I just don’t often get to have it.”

“Well, you will tonight.”

When Bethany smiled at him, Cullen felt something stir low in his belly. He coughed and looked away. “So,” he said, after the waiter had brought them water and menus, “you’re from Kirkwall?”

“Not exactly. I lived here for a while.” She sighed. “We were from Ferelden, until the war.”

A refugee. There were plenty of them in Kirkwall - the conflicts between refugees and natives kept some of the other Kirkwall PD departments busy at all hours of the day. Cullen’s own cases sometimes took him to Darktown, where many of the refugees lived. “Did you live in Darktown?” he couldn’t resist asking. He couldn’t imagine her there, dirty and starving like all the rest.

Bethany shook her head. “Thank the Maker, no. My uncle lives in Lowtown, so we lived in his house for a couple of years. Until I became a Warden, and Marian …” Bethany looked down at her water for a moment. “Well, she did better for herself.”

Something tickled in Cullen’s memory. “Marian Hawke … I’ve heard that name, I think.”

“I’m sure you have.” There was something in Bethany’s voice that didn’t invite further discussion about her sister. Cullen made a mental note to look up the name when he got back to the office. It would be interesting to find out if she was somehow connected to Kirkwall’s criminal underworld or something. 

The waiter reappeared, and Bethany looked down at the menu again. “It all looks good,” she confessed. “You’re the regular, just order me something you like.”

Cullen couldn’t suppress a small smile as he ordered. It wasn’t something he got to do often - introduce someone to a dish he liked. Small pleasures were all he had to hold onto some days. It was that small pleasure, he supposed, that led him to speak again - about a surprising topic. “I’m actually from Ferelden myself,” he volunteered, after the waiter was gone again. 

“Oh?”

“Yes.” Why had he brought this up? He actively tried not to discuss his life prior to Kirkwall with anyone. “I grew up at the Denerim Chantry. When I was a Templar, I served at Kinloch Hold.”

“Oh.” Bethany blinked. “The Chantry - do you mean the orphanage?” Almost immediately, she held a hand up. “Sorry. That was probably too personal.”

“No, I did say it.” Why? He had no idea. “Yes, I grew up at the Chantry orphanage.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was what it was.” Cullen had no memory of his parents, or of being anywhere else but the orphanage. If he wondered from time to time about his absent parents … well, it was nothing he needed to discuss with a federal agent, that was for sure. 

There was an awkward silence for a while, neither of them looking at the other. Then, pieces of the conversation came together in Cullen’s head. “So,” he began, “I know you weren’t at Kinloch Hold, because I would have remembered you. Where did you …”

Bethany sighed. “I was an apostate.” Her words sounded more like a child’s recitation than anything - a sign she’d given this answer many times. “My father ran away from the Kirkwall Circle when he met my mother. He trained me until he died.”

An apostate. As if he needed something else to be wary of where she was concerned. But before Cullen could open his mouth to say anything, she continued. “Yes, I know you were a Templar, and I know how that’s going to make you think of me. But that’s not a conversation I really want to have right now. If I ever decide I want to debate magic or religion with you, I’ll let you know.” Her tone indicated that she’d decide to enter the argument somewhere around the twelfth of never. 

_An apostate is a sin against the Maker. Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him. Apostates do not serve anyone but themselves. An apostate is never to be trusted, because they have learned how to lie to protect their own cursed freedom._

He’d heard so many things about apostates, back when he was a Templar, had them pounded into his head until they had to be truths. There was still a part of him that wanted to recite the Chant of Light, to somehow ward himself against an apostate sitting across from him. There was something in Bethany’s eyes - something hard and pained as she steadily met his gaze - that made Cullen swallow whatever else he might have said. “Very well,” he said stiffly. 

They sat in awkward silence until their food arrived. When Bethany dug into the pasta Cullen had ordered for her, her frown melted into a look of bliss. “Oh,” she sighed, pulling the fork from her mouth. “That’s good.”

No, Cullen thought, that - her expression, and the way her lips flicked out to catch a stray bit of sauce at the side of her mouth - was dangerous. He’d clearly been too long without a woman. Not that he was celibate, of course; he dated as often as his job would allow, which, to be honest, wasn’t as often as he’d like. But he did date, and he did enjoy a night with a willing woman from time to time. He wasn’t an adolescent virgin, that was for sure. So he had no excuse for reacting to a woman - especially this particular woman - this way. She was beautiful, and she was enjoying the food he ordered for her. That was good.

When she wiped a spot of sauce from her chin with a finger and stuck it into her mouth, Cullen looked down at his own plate and concentrated on the chicken he had yet to eat. It was just safer that way.

After a few minutes, Bethany spoke again. “So,” she started, sounding hesitant, “Why did you choose to come to Kirkwall?”

Cullen looked up. She was twining a few strands of pasta around her fork, and looking at him with curious eyes. “I had … personal problems, at the Circle in Ferelden,” he said carefully. “When I left, I decided to leave the country. I wanted a new start.”

She nodded. “But why Kirkwall? It’s not exactly a friendly city for Fereldans.”

“Don’t I know it,” Cullen snorted. “It wasn’t easy. But I knew a couple of Templars who had transferred here. They smoothed my way a little bit - or, at least got me an interview with the police department.”

“You’re lucky.”

“I was, yeah.” He shrugged. “I also got lucky when they promoted Captain Vallen. The fact that she’s from Ferelden works in my favor. Not that she favors me, of course, but I don’t start in that negative hole of respect that I used to with other superior officers.”

“I get that. When I lived here …” Bethany gave him a small, sad smile, before she looked back down at her plate. “Well, we did a few sketchy things to get by. Because no one wanted to hire any Fereldans, even if we could prove our worth.”

She didn’t elaborate, but the statement just made Cullen want to look into her sister’s name all the more. “I’m sure you did what you had to do,” he said carefully.

“We did. But Aveline kept us honest, when she could.” 

“Aveline - you mean Captain Vallen?”

Bethany nodded. “She’s an old friend. We met her when we were escaping from Lothering, and traveled to Kirkwall with her.”

Well, that was interesting, as well. And probably didn’t bode well for Cullen’s ability to look up the Hawkes in their system - if they were friends of the Captain’s, she probably kept them off the books as much as she could. He supposed he could ask her about them, but he wasn’t sure she’d be willing to tell him what he wanted to know. Really, he wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted to know. He just wanted to know more - about the Hawkes, about Bethany. He told himself it was professional curiosity. It was natural to want to know more about a person you were forced to work with.

It was almost a convincing argument.

But, he knew the most important thing about her, didn’t he? That small sunburst on her wrist said it all - orange and black, against pale, delicate skin, wrist attached to hands that boasted long, slender fingers. For a moment, his vision blurred, and he saw another wrist with the same brand; another hand, tentatively reaching up to cup his cheek. If he looked up at her face, he was sure, utterly positive, that he’d see white-blonde hair instead of brown, not quite hiding ears that came to a sharp point. His hand twitched, itching to reach across the table and grab her hand, touch her, for the first time in so many years …

… but when he blinked, all he could see was purple skin. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a deep, throaty female laugh mocked him. And then there was pain. There was always pain, even when he knew it wasn’t real. The pain never left, no matter how far away from Kinloch Hold he was - physically or mentally.

Cullen shoved back from the table, knocking his water over in the process. When he looked across the table, the only person there was Bethany, eyes wide, poised to rise - to either help him or flee, he didn’t know which. “No,” he said, his voice little more than a growl. “I … I’ll be back.” Without looking at her face again, he fled in the direction of the men’s room.

Once there, Cullen leaned over a sink and splashed water on his face. It had been a long time since he’d suffered a flashback like that. A year or two earlier, Neria’s face had haunted his dreams almost nightly. He’d escaped from her - from the abomination with her face - or so he thought. But a long absence didn’t mean she was gone for good, apparently, because for that brief moment, Bethany had worn her face. 

He didn’t need this. He didn’t want this. Having a mage - an attractive mage - so near was affecting him more than it rightly should. The counselor he’d been forced to see for a while after the attack at Kinloch Hold would probably say that he was allowed to be affected, that he didn’t have to be over the whole experience … but he wanted to be. He wanted to forget everything that happened there, everything that led up to it. He didn’t need a Grey Warden coming into his life and not only messing up his work, but also his head.

“It’s not her fault,” he muttered aloud. The man at the sink next to him gave him a look, but Cullen ignored him. It wasn’t Bethany’s fault at all that he was so damaged. But her presence was dredging up too many feelings he’d left buried for good reason.

He needed her gone. He’d help her through this case, and then she’d leave. And he could get back to his well-ordered life.

When he returned to the table, Bethany looked at him with concern. “Are you -”

“I’m fine,” he said, cutting her off. He sat down and poked at what remained of his dinner. “Are you almost done?” He knew he sounded rude, but just sitting across from her was making him twitch. 

“Yes,” she said slowly. She pushed her plate away. “I think I am done.”

“Okay.” Cullen took a deep breath, running a hand through his hair. “Sorry,” he said.

“That’s okay.” Bethany pulled out her wallet. “You know what, I’ll just leave this …”

“No, don’t.” Cullen waved her off. “I’ve got it.”

She nodded. “Thanks.” She stood up and brushed nonexistent crumbs from her pants. “Will you be coming with me to visit the templar in the morning?”

“What?” He willed himself to focus. “Yes. Yes, I will.”

“Okay. I’ll be at your office at eight, then.”

Cullen felt a bit guilty when she walked away. But it was for the best. He needed a nice, professional distance to restore his own peace of mind.

 

*

Bethany had only been to the Gallows twice before, neither time by her own choice. Marian seemed to delight in making her uncomfortable, dragging her along when a job took her to see the Templars for one reason or another. “It’s not like you have ‘mage’ stamped on your forehead,” she told Bethany on more than one occasion - apparently, her sister thought referencing Tranquility was the height of humor. Because Marian wasn’t the one in danger of being lobotomized if something went wrong.

As if someone had heard her thoughts, a woman passed by Bethany and Cullen - she bore the same sunburst tattoo as Bethany, but instead of having it on the inside of her wrist, she wore it emblazoned on her forehead. Tranquil. A mage without magic, without emotion, without her own life. Every mage’s nightmare - or, at least, every mage that Bethany knew, including herself. As much as she had hated having magic at certain points in her life, it was forever better than losing everything that made her who she was. Emotions hurt, but at least they were proof she still lived.

The Tranquil woman passed, and Bethany suppressed her instinctive shudder. Looking away didn’t help; the building in front of her was nearly as unsettling. The Gallows was built into an old prison, which sat on an island across from the city docks. Slaves once lived here, back when the slave trade was still legal - and, well, slaves still lived here, as far as Bethany was concerned. The place was populated by mages who didn’t have much choice in the matter. Sure, the tattoo - and its tracking magic - allowed mages to live freely, wherever they wanted, but it was a life with few options. No one wanted to hire a person with a sunburst on their wrist, and very few people were willing to rent apartments or sell houses to mages. And forget about having a social life, most public gatherings actively discouraged mages from attending. Bethany had been lucky most of her life - she’d avoided the tattoo until she joined the Wardens. And being a Warden afforded her a respect most mages never got. 

So, many mages, tired of being rejected everywhere else, came to live at the Gallows. And there they sat, under the watchful eye of the Templars, unable to leave without permission, unless they wanted to potentially lose their privileges. It sounded like a nightmare … one which she was unfortunately living, at least in part, with the Wardens. But at least the Wardens didn’t look at her like she was a living sin against the Maker. Most of them didn’t, anyway. 

Speaking of feeling like a living sin … Bethany glanced at her companion as they entered the main building. Cullen walked stiffly beside her, staying most of an arm’s length away at all times. She could only figure that the problem began - or, to be honest, was recalled - when she mentioned she had been an apostate. He used to be a Templar, she shouldn’t be surprised he reacted badly. But the way he’d freaked out the night before … that was a mystery. Cullen didn’t seem to have no intention of solving it for her, since he didn’t seem to be speaking to her at all outside of monosyllabic answers to direct questions. 

At least he was useful as a guide - he’d obviously been inside the Gallows buildings before, where she’d only ever visited the courtyard. He led her through a dark corridor, into the far wing of the building, where office doors lined a long hallway. When he stopped in front of the one marked “Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard,” Bethany blinked. She’d forgotten Cullen mentioned her. 

Cullen knocked, and a brisk female voice answered. “Come in.”

Inside, the Knight-Commander sat at her desk. Her height was obvious even as she sat behind the desk, and her gold hair was pulled back in a severe bun. She looked curious when she caught sight of Cullen. “Lieutenant. This is unexpected.”

He stood partially in front of Bethany, which she didn’t exactly mind. She may not be an apostate any more, but she still didn’t want the attention of the woman who was rumored to be the most hardline Templar in Thedas. “Knight-Commander,” Cullen said, crossing his arms over his chest and giving a shallow bow. It was a respectful greeting of a subordinate to a commanding officer - old habits must die hard, Bethany supposed. “We have a missing persons case; one of your Templars has been named as a potential witness. Could you point me towards Emeric?”

“Emeric?” The Knight-Commander sighed and shook her head. “Please don’t tell me he’s gone to the police with his nonsense about Mharen.”

“Mharen, ma’am? I haven’t heard the name.”

“Good.” Clearly, the woman did not intend to elaborate, because she went on. “Emeric is on duty with the apprentices this week, you’ll find him in the back courtyard.” Then, she noticed Bethany. “Who is your colleague, Cullen?”

Bethany stepped forward and offered her hand - her right hand, which meant her tattoo was plain to see. “Agent Bethany Hawke, Grey Wardens. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Knight-Commander.”

If there was a hesitation before the Knight-Commander took her hand, it was so brief that Bethany may have imagined it. “Agent,” she said. “Your missing persons case has magic involved?”

It was directed to Cullen, but Bethany answered. “We’re not sure yet. My commanding officer wants to cover all our bases. It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“Indeed.” The Knight-Commander nodded. “Carry on. If you need anything else, please come to me.” 

It was an obvious dismissal, and Cullen and Bethany withdrew from her office. “I assume you know how to get to the back courtyard?” Bethany said.

“I do.” With that, Cullen walked back down the corridor, leaving Bethany to scramble to catch up. 

Walking through the Gallows was sobering. They passed through the apprentice wing; despite the change from bars to doors, all the rooms still looked like prison cells to Bethany. She watched as several children, probably around ten years old, came walking out of one room. None of them smiled. When a waiting Templar ushered them down the hall, one of them hung back, leaving as much room between herself and the Templar as she could possibly manage without getting in trouble, Bethany guessed. She felt for the girl. She could have been that girl, had her life gone differently.

She didn’t often have cause to thank the Maker for her life in the Wardens, but knowing she could be a resident here, had she not listened to Marian … well, even with their problems, the Wardens were preferable. 

The tingling in her wrist was probably imagined; her phylactery wasn’t even here, it was in Ansburg. She’d felt this before, at the Circle where she’d finally been branded as a mage. They used her own blood to tattoo the sunburst on her arm, and then kept a magicked vial of it in their locked vault. Should she ever go missing, they could use it to track her - and likely to kill her, if need be. The closer she was to that vial of blood, the more she could feel the tattoo tingling. It was some sort of sympathetic magic, two components of the same spell being in proximity to each other. She had no reason to feel it here, but she rubbed the inside of her wrist anyway. Maybe it was just the magic in general. Somewhere around here, there were a whole bunch of phylacteries, all imbued with the same magic hers was. She wondered how the mages who lived here could stand the constant tingle. Maybe a person would get used to it?

She realized her mind was wandering, just as they exited a door into a large, surprisingly bright courtyard. All around the yard, several dozen children and teenagers worked with older mages on a variety of spells. One group close to her was working on mind blast, with volunteer victims dressed in padding and placed on soft mats for safety. Bethany remembered learning the spell with her father - no padding involved, just her father frequently hitting the hard ground in the woods behind their old house. He’d laughed it off, but he’d also walked like an old man for a week afterwards.

Bethany’s reveries were interrupted when she nearly ran straight into Cullen’s back. She recovered by stepping back a half step. “Ser Emeric?” Cullen asked.

He’d stopped in front of an older Templar, with long graying hair and a kindly face - something that surprised Bethany. Possibly because she’d been raised to think of Templars as her own personal bogeymen. The man blinked. “Yes? Can I help you?”

Cullen introduced both himself and Bethany. “The Knight-Commander gave us permission to come down here and talk to you about your visit to a Jethann at …”

Emeric immediately reddened. “Please tell me you didn’t actually tell her where I’d been.”

“We didn’t,” Bethany assured him, giving him a small smile. “But we do want to talk to you about the questions you were asking. We’re investigating the disappearance of Ninette de Carrac.”

“Ah.” Emeric nodded. He waved another Templar over, and motioned Cullen and Bethany over to a corner of the courtyard. “I heard about Ninette’s disappearance,” he said, sitting down on a bench, “through a posting her husband made on one of the internet sites I frequent. It sounded familiar to me.”

“How so?” Cullen asked.

“We have a missing mage,” Emeric said. “An older woman, Mharen. She’s been living here for more than thirty years. I’ve never heard her express any interest in living out in the city - in fact, when we spoke about it once, she told me that it was a lot more comfortable in here for someone like her than it was to try to make it on her own. But, a month ago, she just disappeared - she didn’t show up for dinner one day, and no one’s seen her since.”

“Why do you think her disappearance is connected to Ninette?” Bethany asked.

“The lilies.”

Cullen and Bethany looked at each other. Bethany remembered something about lilies from Ninette’s case file. “Ghyslain said that Ninette had been getting lilies from an admirer before her disappearance,” Cullen said. “He assumed they were from Jethann.”

Emeric nodded. “Ghyslain’s post mentioned them. I remember the day that Mharen got a flower delivery - it was so weird, because she hadn’t been out of the Gallows in years. Who would know her well enough to send her flowers? She didn’t know, but they made her face light up. Something felt off about it, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Not until she was gone.”

“Could you trace the delivery through the flower shop?” Bethany asked.

“No, unfortunately. It came through a place in Lowtown; I went down there, but no one remembered who’d bought them, and whoever it was paid cash.”

“It was the same with Ninette,” Cullen said, scratching his jaw, “except it was a shop in Hightown. Different areas, so that he wouldn’t be recognized as a repeat customer.”

“Why did you go to Jethann?” Bethany asked Emeric. “Did you have any reason to believe that he would have known Mharen as well?”

“No, not really. I was just covering all my bases. Ghyslain said he suspected Jethann of sending the flowers. I wanted to see if it was true or not.” 

“And you found it wasn’t?”

The Templar nodded at Bethany. “Like I said, just covering my bases. I couldn’t see any way a … man like him would be connected to Mharen.”

“Jethann mentioned something,” Cullen said. “You told him you were heading for Darktown next?”

Emeric sighed and rubbed his brow. “I don’t think the Knight-Commander will thank me for telling you this, but right now, I don’t think I care. Mharen deserves better than to be thought of as just some runaway. Do you know what a phylactery is?”

In response, Bethany held up her wrist. “I was a Templar,” Cullen said.

“Okay. Well, we obviously used Mharen’s phylactery to try to track her. We followed the spell to Darktown. There was what looked like a passage in the back of a dirty old room, but unfortunately, that room was populated by coterie members who weren’t too keen on having Templars rummaging around their place.” Emeric shook his head. “I’m too old to fight gang members. We had to retreat. The Knight-Commander decided that Mharen must be dead, killed by the Coterie for unknown reasons.”

“But no one got to see where the passage went?” Bethany asked.

“No. I really wish I could have investigated further.” He pinned his gaze on Bethany, and then on Cullen. “I can point it out on a map of the tunnels, I remember exactly where it was.”

Bethany and Cullen both nodded. "That would be great," Bethany said. 

"If you find anything, will you tell me?" Emeric asked. "I just want to know what happened to her. I'm sure she didn't run away."

"We will," Cullen said, to Bethany's surprise. But, she supposed, there was a certain camaraderie between Templars, current or former. 

As they left the Gallows, they passed another Tranquil mage. Bethany shuddered. "Are you okay?" Cullen asked, looking at her curiously.

"Let's just get out of here, okay?"

In the car, Cullen turned to her. "You were uncomfortable there."

"You don't say."

"It's not ..." He trailed off, ran a hand through his hair. "I was going to say it's not a bad place to live, but I have to be honest - I'm not all that comfortable there, either. Kinloch Hold was very different."

The only way Bethany could have been more surprised by his statement was if he'd told her that he was a mage himself. "Really?"

"It was ... warmer. Less like a prison." He shrugged. "There was a time when I would have ... well, maybe there was a time when the Gallows would have appealed to me. But it doesn't. Not now." 

"Can I ask - why did you leave the Templars?"

Cullen was silent for a long moment. "The war came to the Circle, too," he said. "In a sense. It's not something I like to talk about."

"Fair enough. I'm sorry."

"No, it's ... okay." He took a deep breath. "I still have problems. Which explains what happened last night. I'm sorry for that."

"Don't be. I -" She couldn't say she understood, not without knowing his story. But she knew what it was like to be haunted. "I have my own issues. I can't cast stones."

Cullen looked at her for a long moment, before turning away and starting the car. She could feel the question on the tip of his tongue - but asking her would open him to questions, she knew. She was grateful he didn't ask. Too many of her issues were tied up in Warden secrets, the things that bound her. As much as she wanted to share them with someone, to unload to someone who might understand, she couldn't. 

Bethany felt a weight lift off her shoulders as they left the Gallows behind. There lay a life she could have lived. She wasn't often grateful for the Wardens, but thinking of the mages with orange sunbursts tattooed on their foreheads, she gave a silent word of thanks now.

*

Darktown smelled like shit. Which made sense, considering it was partially built into sewer tunnels.

Years ago, Kirkwall boasted an extensive underground transportation system, one that ran from the Gallows to Hightown and all points in between. The parts that connected Hightown still existed, but the sections in the poorer parts of town had fallen into disrepair a long time ago. That was partly a good thing - the original system had existed to transport slaves through town - but it left a lot of empty train tunnels without enough city staff to patrol them. What resulted was Darktown, the Kirkwall haven for the homeless, criminal, and desperate. 

The main entrance - such as it was - was an old train station entrance in Lowtown, near the Hanged Man. It led down into an old ticket booth and waiting area, which were filled with tents and makeshift shacks. Cullen and Bethany picked their way through the crowd. Cullen was glad he'd changed from his relatively expensive leather jacket to his beat-up old hoodie, because he felt hands picking at the back of his jacket every time he turned a corner. At one point, he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye; when he turned, he saw Bethany grab a thin wrist from her pocket. "No," she said, pushing the offender backward. Her expression was hard; harder than he expected it to be.

In fact, Bethany moved through Darktown like a native. Cullen was fairly familiar with it - an amazing number of missing people could be found down here - but he still turned the wrong way at times, and ran into enclaves he didn't know existed. "You've been here before," he said.

"Yes," she said, but didn't elaborate. She stopped at a junction of three tunnels. Down the left side, Cullen knew, was a small makeshift medical clinic; he'd never met the doctor who ran it, but he knew other cops who used him as a contact. Bethany looked down the left tunnel for a long moment before shaking her head, as if answering a silent question. "Emeric's directions go right," she said. "Let's go."

After a few more minutes of picking their way through addicts and homeless on the floors of the tunnels, they came to a large, open room, populated by somewhere around a dozen people who looked much less down-and-out than the people they'd encountered up until now. Cullen looked at a couple of them, all sporting scars and flat, hard eyes, and identified them immediately. "Coterie," he murmured.

Bethany nodded. "Just keep going."

They walked past several of the gang members without incident - the fact that Bethany suddenly moved like one of them, all casual tension and awareness, probably helped - but halfway to the back door, a man stopped them. "Where do you think you're going?"

"None of your business," Bethany replied, before Cullen could open his mouth.

"This is Coterie territory, it is our business."

"Just let us through, we're not after hurting anything of yours."

"Oh yeah?" The man circled around Bethany, leering. Cullen's hand went to his gun. "Maybe you should give me something, if I'm gonna let you pass."

Bethany didn't look worried. She gave the man a small smirk. "I'm not giving you that, that's for sure."

"Well, then, get lost." He flicked a glance at Cullen. "And take your cop boyfriend with you." He hadn't thought he radiated 'cop', but apparently Cullen did. He just looked at the man and tightened his grip on his gun.

Bethany looked at the man for a long moment. Then, casually, she brought a hand up and, with no more than a blink, called a small flame into her palm. "You'll want to let us pass," she said calmly. 

"A mage, huh? You think you're special? We have at least ten of you." 

"In this room?"

The man narrowed his eyes, and in that moment, Cullen could read his face - no, there were no other mages in the room. The bad news was that they were probably in for a twelve against two fight. Bethany could tell, as well, because she backed up a step, extinguishing the fire. "We just want to take a look at the room back there. We don't want any trouble."

"Too bad, because you've found it." 

The man lashed out with a knife - at Cullen, because he clearly wasn’t quite stupid enough to directly attack someone who could set him on fire. Cullen was nearly prepared for it, but the man was quick enough that he couldn’t quite dive out of the way before the knife made contact. Cullen felt pain across his ribcage, as the knife tore his shirt and the skin underneath. He heard Bethany shout his name as he stumbled to his knees. 

He pressed a hand to his side. When he brought it up, he felt a small flash of relief - there was blood, yes, but it seemed to be a shallow wound. Suddenly, someone’s arms came around him from the back. Cullen jammed his elbow backwards and hit soft flesh; his attacker let go, and Cullen scrambled to his feet. He reached for his gun - but didn’t draw it, not now, not when it would cause a million miles of paperwork and counseling sessions if he discharged his weapon. If he needed to - if one of them was in danger of losing their lives - he’d do it, but for now, he’d stick with brawling. 

Two men approached Cullen, knives in hand. Cullen swore under his breath. If only he still had license to carry his Templar’s sword, this would all be much easier. He could fight hand-to-hand, sure; he’d beaten everyone else in his precinct at the gym. But knives brought a different angle to the fight. Now he had to make sure to stay at arm’s length, which limited the damage he could do. He dropped into a defensive fighting stance -

\- and suddenly, the men were lifted off their feet. A moment later, they slammed into the ground hard enough that Cullen could hear bones breaking. Eyes wide, he turned to Bethany, who had already turned away to wave her hand at another group of three men approaching her. With a grunt, she seemed to push something invisible … and the men flew in the opposite direction, hitting the wall on the other side of the room. At Bethany’s feet, Cullen saw the man who had originally threatened them, unconscious. Or maybe dead. It wasn’t entirely clear. And, concerningly, Cullen wasn’t sure he cared either way.

Once upon a time, as a young Templar recruit, Cullen had been assigned to watch a battle magic training session. It was during the war, and several senior mages were teaching the more reliable young mages battle magic. It was the first time he’d ever seen Neria - white-blonde hair pulled tightly away from her face, dressed in jeans and a flowered blouse that made her look more like she should be protesting war than participating in it. Watching her had been like watching a dancer, all lithe grace as she called fire and ice down onto the training dummies. When one of the dummies burst into tiny pieces, Neria had whooped with joy and spun in a circle. Somehow, it was the spin that had captured Cullen’s young, naive heart. She’d been so full of life, for someone whose only chance to leave the Hold’s walls lay in a willingness to kill.

Bethany looked nothing like Neria; she dressed in more practical jeans and a t-shirt, her dark hair coming loose from its ponytail as she fought. There was no joy in her actions, only grim determination as she directed another wave of force magic toward another attacker. But she had the same dancer’s grace when she moved, and when she turned a concerned eye to Cullen, something in his chest tightened.

He wasn’t a half-trained boy any more. He knew better. He didn’t want that feeling, that … admiration. But there it was anyway.

Bethany called a fireball to her hand, but held it as she looked around the room. Cullen turned with her. The other assailants had obviously taken an opportunity to escape from the mage who was obviously trouncing them. Bethany put out the fire and hurried to Cullen’s side. “Come on, we have to get out of here.”

“We could still …”

“Like hell we could. You’re bleeding. Besides, they’re probably on their way back with as many mages as they could round up.”

There was logic in that. A lot, actually. And, as Cullen took a step forward, his vision swam. “Okay,” he said, trying not to stumble. He shrugged off Bethany’s arm when she tried to put it around his waist. “I’ll be fine. Let’s just hurry.”

He could make it out of Darktown under his own power. Even if the gash in his side was beginning to throb like a bass drum.

*

Cullen refused to go to the hospital, no matter how much Bethany insisted. “It’s just a scratch,” he kept saying, “I can clean it out myself.” He did, however, relent and let her drive the car when they retrieved it from the parking ramp. 

“If you won’t go to the hospital,” Bethany said, sighing as she started up the car, “then at least let me help you. I’m sure there’s some first aid supplies back at the station.”

Cullen winced. “No, I don’t want to go back there. I’d have to explain, and …” He shrugged, which Bethany could only take to mean _and I’m a man and hate admitting weakness._

“Fine. We’ll stop at a drug store for supplies and then go … where?”

“We can go to my apartment,” Cullen said, leaning back in the passenger seat and closing his eyes. His hand held a wadded-up piece of the lining from Bethany’s jacket hard against his wound. “It’s not too far.” 

“Not too far” ended up being on the edge of Lowtown, just before the hills that led up to Hightown began. It was a working class neighborhood, the kind of place where foundry workers raised their families. Cullen’s apartment was in a sturdy old brick building, a medium sized block that probably held a dozen units. His was on the third floor, and by the time they’d climbed the stairs to his door, Cullen was looking more than a bit white. “Here,” she said, grabbing the key out of his shaking hand. “Let me.” He scowled at her, but let her open the door for him. 

His apartment wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d implied at dinner. It seemed to be a good size, and the kitchen she passed had new appliances and what looked like a new paint job. Really, it just looked like a classic bachelor’s pad - he had a battered old couch in the living room, a small dining room table with mismatched chairs, and no art on the walls. Cullen collapsed onto the couch immediately upon entering the room. “Fuck,” he said, pulling the makeshift compress from his wound. “That hurts.”

“Hold on, let me get some water. Do you have a towel you don’t mind losing?” she asked, heading for the kitchen.

“In the closet,” he called. “Take any of them, I don’t care.”

When she returned with a small bowl of water and a tattered old towel, he had already removed his shirt and was dabbing at the wound with the already-bloody cloth. “Stop that,” she ordered. “You’ll make it worse.”

Cullen rolled his eyes at her, but put the cloth down and watched her as she sat down beside him. Bethany tried very hard not to stare - but shirtless Cullen was, even dirty and injured, an unexpected pleasure. The muscles across his chest spoke to some kind of weight lifting, and a light dusting of hair stretched from mid-chest down to the waistband of his jeans. And he was watching her so intently; when she met his gaze, she fought not to blush. Instead, she looked down at his wound, dabbing the towel into the water. “I’m going to clean it first,” she said, “and then we’ll worry about the antiseptic.”

She placed a hand on his lower back to anchor herself; his skin was warm beneath her fingers. She looked down and began to wipe the excess blood away. When she looked back up, Cullen was facing forward, eyes closed. His jaw was clenched, the muscles of his throat rippling as he swallowed. Bethany had the sudden, crazy urge to press a kiss to the spot where his neck met his shoulders. She bit her lip and reached for the antiseptic. An inappropriate response, she told herself, thanks to post-fight adrenaline …

… which was bullshit, of course, and she knew it. But the thought was enough to quash the urge. _Beth, when you get back to Ansburg, you need to get laid. Badly._

She sprayed the antiseptic onto Cullen’s skin. He hissed at the pain. “Fuck.”

“I know. Just a minute more.” Thankfully, it was the shallow wound he’d claimed it to be; he’d hurt for a while, but it wasn’t large enough to need stitches. “You were lucky.”

He hummed, frowning. “Lucky that you were there.”

Bethany wanted to boost his ego, but if she was honest, he was right. And wrong. “I shouldn’t have antagonized them. It was dumb. And,” she muttered, under her breath, “I’m not my sister.”

“Your sister?”

“It’s nothing,” she said. But then, she took a deep breath and began taping a bandage over Cullen’s wound. “We did some work for one of the Coterie’s rivals, back when we first moved to Kirkwall. The Red Iron. You’ve heard of them?” When Cullen nodded, she continued. “My uncle owed them money, so we paid off his debts in exchange for a place to live. I wasn’t very … well,” she said, lips twisting in a self-depricating smile, “I wasn’t really cut out for the criminal life. Marian was much better at it.”

“What did you do for the Red Iron?”

“Mostly guarded their shipments. Fought the Coterie when they tried to mess with us. My sister has a pretty flexible moral code, but at least she insisted on sticking to the defensive jobs.” _At least, not after the first_. Not even the Wardens knew she’d participated in an assassination, and she had no intention of telling them, or Cullen, about the lengths her family had gone to get into Kirkwall. 

Cullen looked at her for a long moment. “You keep talking about your sister, as if everything was her decision. What about you?”

“I spent a long time avoiding decisions,” Bethany said, shrugging. “I was hiding from the Templars. Marian’s shadow was a good hiding place.” If she sounded bitter … well, she was, she supposed. Running around in Marian’s shadow had led her places she never intended to go, places she hadn’t wanted to go. If she’d only started making her own decisions earlier in her life, who knows what would have happened? Maybe she wouldn’t even be here, fighting the Coterie again, bandaging up a former Templar. _But where would you be, Beth?_ Her options were sadly limited by the talents she was cursed with. 

Abruptly, she stood up. “I’ll just put all this away,” she said, gathering up the first aid supply. “In your bathroom?” When he nodded, she fled down the hall.

The tiny bathroom was clean, if cluttered. Bethany opened the battered medicine cabinet - there were old, likely expired pill bottles stuffed onto every shelf. She pushed a few to the side on the top shelf. When her fingers brushed up against something smooth and warm, she jerked her hand back. Unless there was a heating vent right behind that spot, there was no reason for anything back there to be warmer than everything else. Leave it, she told herself, but even as she thought the words, she was reaching back up and curling her fingers around the small bottle.

Part of her was unsurprised to see the bright blue liquid swirling inside the glass vial. Lyrium. 

… which technically was illegal to possess if you were not either a registered mage or an active Templar. Bethany had several small vials in her purse, to enhance her magical powers when necessary. She disliked taking them, because the drug made her feel like her magic was taking over her body, like she was no longer in control. For someone who spent almost her entire life controlling her talents in order to hide, that loss of control was terrifying. But sometimes, mostly when fighting, lyrium was necessary. 

She knew that Templars also took lyrium, in order to learn and perform certain low-level spells that kept mages in check. Cullen was no longer a Templar, but she’d heard that non-mages who took lyrium on a regular basis could get addicted to the stuff. Some also said that the Chantry addicted its Templars on purpose, to keep better control of them. It was all part of the complicated politics of the Circle that Bethany preferred to stay away from.

“What are you doing?” Cullen spoke from the doorway

Bethany jumped, curling her fingers around the vial to keep from dropping it. “Oh!” 

His hand curled around her wrist. “Why are you snooping in my things?”

She looked at Cullen’s face, which held a storm of emotions - anger and shame being foremost, she thought. “I’m sorry,” she said, holding the vial out to him. “I was looking for somewhere to put the antiseptic.”

Cullen reached out slowly with his free hand; it felt like ten minutes before he finally took the vial from Bethany’s hand. “I forgot that was in there,” he said softly. “I haven’t taken lyrium in …”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I understand.” His fingers were tight around her wrist, tight enough that she could feel a tingle in her own fingers. 

“No, you don’t.” Suddenly, he let go of her wrist and thrust the vial back at her. “Take it. I’ve kicked the habit. I didn’t even know I had more in the house. I don’t want it here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” 

Bethany took the vial. “Okay.” When she looked at his face, she realized that his eyes had never left the lyrium. He watched as she shoved it in her pocket, and only looked back at her face when she cleared her throat. “Is that feeling all right?” she asked, changing the subject back to his injury.

He put a hand on the bandage. “Yeah. It’s fine. Thanks.”

Cullen didn’t break his gaze or move from the doorway. Suddenly, Bethany was acutely aware of how small the room was, and how close she stood to him. He smelled like sweat and antiseptic, a strange combination that made her nose itch. Yet, a part of her still wanted to put her hands on his still-bare chest, to feel warm flesh and hair and his heartbeat under her palm. She wanted to reach up and kiss him … and for a brief moment, she saw a spark in his eyes that seemed to say he wouldn’t mind. Bethany caught her breath. This was - this wasn’t wise, in any way, shape, or form. She had no business -

A cell phone rang in the living room. Cullen cursed under his breath. “That’s the precinct’s ringtone.” He turned on his heel and walked back down the hall, leaving Bethany to lean against the bathroom counter and take a deep breath. 

When she came back to the living room, Cullen was hanging up the phone. “A break in one of my other cases,” he said, shoving his phone in the back pocket of his jeans. “Two missing teenagers. One of them came home today. I need to go talk to him.”

Bethany nodded. “Can you drop me at my hotel on your way?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks.”

Cullen headed back down the hallway - to find a shirt, Bethany assumed. This was good, she told herself. An afternoon at the hotel, doing mind-numbing paperwork, would be a good antidote to this adrenaline running through her veins. It was still post-fight jitters that had her brain thinking such crazy things. It had to be. 

The excuse sounded lame even inside her head. But she clung to it anyway, because it was comforting.

*

The next morning, Cullen called in some favors at the precinct, and sent a squad into the Darktown tunnels to make some arrests and generally cause havoc to the populace. He felt a little bad about it, but if it made the Coterie scatter long enough for he and Bethany to explore that tunnel, it would be worth it. 

By the time Bethany arrived at the precinct, mid-morning, Cullen was strapping on a belt that hid two daggers underneath his coat. “We should have a short window of time to get into Darktown,” he said. “Some of the beat cops around here did a roundup of the Coterie’s usual suspects for questioning, so they should be pretty scarce.”

“Questioning for what?”

Cullen shrugged. “They could have just pulled a random unsolved case out of the file. Chances are pretty good the Coterie was involved, whatever it is.”

“Ah. Got it.” Bethany smiled. “Nice work.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, I had nothing to do with it.” Bethany's answering laugh sounded sweet to Cullen's ears.

By the time they got to the car, though, Cullen felt more than a bit awkward again. He didn't want to talk about it - the lyrium - but he wondered what she thought of him. She didn't have any room to think anything bad about him, he told himself, given that she was once an apostate. But still. Somehow, this woman's opinion mattered. "The lyrium," he said, surprising himself. And Bethany, judging by the look on her face. "I used to take it all the time. After I left the Templars."

"You don't have to ..."

"There's a guy," Cullen continued, ignoring her protest, "who runs an operation down by the Lowtown docks. He specializes in supplying ex-Templars. I think he might have been one, once. He certainly knows a lot about how Templar training works." He sighed. "I should turn him in, I know, but I can't."

"I get it. I do," she said when he looked over at her. "Former criminal, remember? My sister's friends are still not the most upstanding citizens. They do plenty of stuff I should probably report to my superiors, or the local authorities. But I don't. Because there are worse things in the world to worry about."

"There are." He took a deep breath. "Anyway. I thought you should know ... I've been off lyrium for almost a year now."

Bethany opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally, she nodded. "I'm glad. I've seen older Templars before."

So had Cullen. Broken shells of men, left standing at places that needed no guard, because they could no longer be trusted with any task that mattered. The lyrium burned through their brains, leaving nothing behind. The first time he realized that could be him one day ... well, it was the first time he'd ever considered leaving the Templars. At the time, he'd decided that his devotion to the Chantry was more important than his fear, but after the rebellion at Kinloch Hold, he discovered that his dedication really only went so far. 

They drove the rest of the route to Darktown in silence. When they parked, Bethany reached into her bag and pulled a handful of small lyrium vials from the bottom. "Just in case," she said, looking apologetically at Cullen. "If I have to use magic again, I want to have something in reserve."

"It's okay. It's a good idea."

Bethany shoved the vials into a small pouch on her belt. "Okay, let's go."

Today, the tunnels were nearly silent - anyone who hadn't been rousted by the cops was clearly in hiding. Cullen could count the number of people he saw between the entrance to Darktown and the room they'd been stopped in the day before on one hand. "I hoped it'd be quiet, but this is kind of eerie."

Bethany shrugged. "People down here take cops seriously. Back when I was spending time down here, there were some cops that would harass refugees simply because they could." When Cullen looked at her, she just raised an eyebrow. "Do you know the clinic down here?"

"I know of it." Some Fereldan refugee had set up a free medical clinic somewhere in Darktown - Cullen had never been there, but some of his colleagues had interviewed the doctor. "He's a strange guy," one of them told Cullen. "Twitchy. There's something off about him."

"I used to help out at the clinic," Bethany continued. "And it was a toss-up some days, whether the people who came in beaten and bruised had been stopped by the Coterie or the police."

Cullen wanted to protest, tell her that the people he worked with weren't like that. But he knew that some people were capable of horrible things, and that being a cop didn't automatically make someone a better person. "Did you ever ..."

She snorted. "I learned how to successfully hide a long time ago."

Finally, they came to the far wall of the room from the previous day. Bethany raised an eyebrow. "This is where Emeric said there'd be a tunnel, right?" 

Cullen eyed the corner. "Yes, and I think ..." He went over to the corner and ran his hand over what seemed to be smooth concrete. A crack presented itself, and he dug his fingers into the gap. After a moment of effort, a door swung open. 

"Good eye." Bethany came over and looked into the dark tunnel beyond. "Did you remember to bring a flashlight?"

"Um. No?"

"Oh good. I hope," she muttered, "there are no spiders here."

"You're afraid of spiders?"

"Only ones that are taller than me." 

She didn't seem to be joking. Cullen gulped and pushed the door open wider. "Well, yes. Hopefully no monster spiders."

Bethany ducked around him to enter the tunnel. When Cullen followed her, he noticed that, thankfully, the light from the open door spilled down the hall far enough to illuminate a door in the side wall. "I wonder where that goes."

"Let's find out."

The door opened up into a large room with wooden floors and stone walls. On the opposite side of the room, there were a row of large black vats and a set of stairs leading up. “Where are we?” Bethany asked.

“The basement of one of the foundries, I think. We’re underneath that part of Lowtown.” 

Suddenly, Cullen saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked up to the top of the stairs - a man stood there, too far away for Cullen to see anything but gray hair and a brown suit. He opened his mouth to call out to the man, but at that moment, the man saw them. He froze for a moment, then waved his hands.

And all hell broke loose.

“Cullen, duck!” He barely heard Bethany in time to comply; when he was still on his way down, he felt heat pass just above his neck. He looked into the room to see a row of a half dozen shades advancing toward them, and a fireball hurtling toward the middle of the line. 

The last time he’d seen shades …

He froze.

_A cold floor. A cage of wavering light. His Templar uniform torn to shreds, and a gang of mindless black beings dancing around the cage, taunting him. How long had he been here? Hours? Days? Weeks? He couldn’t tell. All he could do was kneel and pray and hope the Maker heard him. The Maker had to hear him. Didn’t he?_

Bethany charged ahead of him, tossing fireballs in every direction. But Cullen was kneeling on a cold floor, both here and in a large old castle far away from Kirkwall. He barely noticed the two shades breaking from the line and heading towards him - _I’m in a cage, they can’t get to me._ But one of them swiped a spindly arm in his direction, and he felt a burst of entropic magic course through his veins. _Weakness_ , he recognized somewhere in his brain. He wasn’t in a magical cage. He wasn’t at Kinloch Hold. He was on a foundry floor, and a shade was about to blast him with magic again.

Cullen pulled his daggers out of their sheaths under his jacket, and jabbed out. The action almost unbalanced him - the spell was taking its effect. But it did serve the intended purpose; the shades floated away from him, at least for a moment. He stood and tried to catch his balance. Tried to shake the fog from his brain, the feeling of helplessness and fear. He was trained to deal with this sort of thing, once upon a time. He’d intended to make it his life’s work. But now, he was nothing but a civilian, with nothing but a civilian’s tools at hand. And a civilian’s odds of surviving the encounter.

He took a defensive stance, putting the wall at his back and brandishing the daggers to keep the shades at arm’s length. But suddenly, the shades fell away, their peculiar ozone stench replaced by the smell of sulfur and perfume. Cullen’s hands began to shake. He knew that smell. He had nightmares about that smell.

The demon manifested itself, purple and horned and beautiful in an obscene, terrible sort of way. As the shades danced around it, it looked at Cullen. Saw him. And he trembled.

_“I can be anyone you want. There is someone you want, isn’t there?”_

_“I’ll tell you nothing.”_

_“Of course you will. You don’t even have to say anything.”_

_The violation of a mind should cause some sort of pain, Cullen thought. He should be able to feel his thoughts as they were ripped from his mind. Instead, he just felt a warmth that would be pleasant if he didn’t know what was causing it._

_“Oh, I see. I can be her.” The demon smiled, and in the next instant, Neria stood in front of him, hand pressed against her heart. “We can be together,” she said, in Neria’s voice. “You and me, Cullen. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”_

_Except it wasn’t - she hadn’t - and Cullen had always known. So he held on, and the demon simply laughed. “I can try harder.” Cullen blinked, and Neria’s clothing was gone. She held out a hand to Cullen. “Come on,” she said. “You want this. You can have anything, Cullen. It’s all up to you.”_

_Cullen closed his eyes and began to pray. The demon laughed, in Neria’s voice, and wouldn’t stop._

“Cullen!”

He didn’t realize he had his eyes closed until he opened them again. When his vision cleared, Bethany stood in front of him, holding out her hand. “Come on!” 

He looked around. Several of the shades were gone, but the demon still advanced on them. Cullen let Bethany pull him away from the wall and farther into the room. His gaze fell to her belt, and the pouch hanging at her hip. “Lyrium,” he said, before he could think. She looked at him. “Lyrium,” he said, more urgently. “Please.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m no use to you otherwise.” With lyrium, he was a Templar again. With lyrium, he was no longer helpless against his nightmares. “Please.”

She only hesitated a split second. Then, as the demon approached, she reached into the pouch and grabbed a vial. She pressed it into his outstretched hand just as the demon lashed out with a spirit attack. Cullen ducked, and Bethany threw up a quick barrier between them and the demon. His hand shook as he upended the bottle and poured the contents down his throat.

Lyrium burned, in the way that ice burned. It coated his throat with a tingling sensation that made him want to claw at the skin. It felt like swallowing dry ice, or antifreeze; it felt like it should be poisoning him.

He missed the feeling so much. 

The tingling spread through his body - magic, taking its toll. Changing him. Enhancing him. Giving him back the power he'd accepted when he took his Templar vows. Vows that he'd abandoned, of course, but he'd also vowed to leave lyrium behind after he left the Templars. Apparently, Cullen wasn't very good at keeping his promises. But at the moment, he didn't care.

He leapt to his feet, energy and magic coursing through his veins. Bethany took down the barrier and immediately froze the three shades between them and the demon. As the demon called more spirit magic to its hands, Cullen took a deep breath and reached deep inside himself. The magic seemed to pool in his chest, and he silently chanted the words he'd learned long ago. At the last word, he released the magic outward - smiting the shades and the demon, dispelling all magic the demon had been calling to itself. The demon shrieked, and Bethany took the opportunity to gather enough force magic to lift the demon up into the air and slam it against the ground.

Meanwhile, Cullen rushed forward and slashed at the frozen shades. One of them shattered on contact; the other two shrieked and flew away, shaking ice crystals from their leathery skin. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the demon recover and start to fly toward him. He called more magic to his chest and thrust it into his daggers, infusing them with the righteous energy of a Templar. When the demon came within arm's reach, he spun around and buried one of the daggers in its chest. The energy shuddered, and the demon made a high-pitched sound that hurt Cullen's ears.

"Out of the way!" 

At the command, Cullen pulled his dagger from the demon and backed up quickly. He was barely out of range when the demon was engulfed in flames. The high-pitched sound increased, causing Cullen to put his hands over his ears. Then, after an interminable moment, the demon collapsed and disappeared.

When he looked around, he realized the rest of the shades had also disappeared with the demon. He looked back at Bethany. "Thanks."

She nodded. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." He was good. The lyrium still flowed through his veins, making his skin itch and his heart pound. He remembered this feeling, from the first days of his training. It went away quickly, but he'd been off lyrium for a while now. He was as jittery as a new recruit. But it felt good, like he could run a marathon, sprint from here to the Gallows without getting winded. This was the danger, this invulnerable feeling. He woke up craving this feeling every day. Still, he'd forgotten exactly how fucking awesome it was. How dangerous it was.

Bethany came over to him and put her hand on his arm. "Cullen?" She looked concerned. He realized he was breathing heavily, and likely sweating. Her touch, skin to skin just below the sleeve of his t-shirt, seemed to burn. "Cullen, you don't look so good."

"I'm fine," he repeated, though he was less sure now. 

He couldn't justify what happened next. There was no logical reason for it, no explanation other than the influence of the sheer power coursing through his veins. And the look in her amber eyes. And the way her lips parted slightly, just enough to allow her tongue to dart out and moisten the delicate pink skin. All his senses were heightened. He wanted - no, needed - to feel something. To do something. He remembered this from his youth, the way the recruits all piled into the training yard after they were dosed with lyrium, needing to fight out the itch underneath their skin. There was no one left to fight here, though. Nothing else to do to release this energy thrumming through his body.

Nothing to do, except grab Bethany and kiss her.

*

Bethany froze. For a brief moment, she couldn’t do anything but stand there, shocked, with her hands against his chest. But then she felt a rumble in his chest, a nearly inaudible moan that vibrated against her fingers and her lips, and her instincts took over. Her hands slid up to cup his face, and she leaned into the kiss.

Madness. This was madness - lyrium-induced madness, she’d be willing to bet - and the unknown mage could be back to sic more shades on them at any moment. But that was hard to remember with Cullen so close, with his lips so warm against hers and his fingers digging into her sides. So she allowed herself to forget, just for this moment, and parted her lips. His tongue darted in before she could change her mind, tangling with hers and sending shivers down Bethany’s spine. Maker, but he could kiss - why couldn’t this happen at some other time, some other place?

It felt like the kiss went on forever, but in reality, it was only a brief time before they both pulled apart. Cullen’s eyes were wide, and she could see his chest rising and falling with labored breathing. “Andraste’s ass,” he swore. “I’m sorry. I’m so -”

“Don’t be,” she interrupted, after sucking in a breath of her own. “Let’s just … go. That man …”

“Yes. I saw him. A mage.”

“Clearly.” They both looked toward the stairs. Their mysterious man was, unsurprisingly, nowhere in sight. When she looked back at him, Cullen’s face looked slightly more composed, even he still seemed to be breathing heavily. “Upstairs?” she asked, biting back any other question she might want to ask.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

Bethany followed him across the floor and up the stairs. The next floor was more of a balcony surrounding the basement floor, with a couple of offices built into the sides. There was a staircase in the far corner that obviously led up to the foundry, as the scent of burning metal wafted from that direction. “That seems to be the only exit,” she pointed out.

“I know. He’s probably long gone.”

“Probably.” Bethany sighed. “We should search the offices.”

The first office was entirely empty, except for a bare desk and broken office chair. The second office was jammed full of old boxes of paperwork, filing cabinets, and broken equipment. There was barely enough from for both Bethany and Cullen to stand in the same place. “If there’s anything in here …” Cullen began.

Suddenly, Bethany sniffed. “Wait a minute,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Something smells back there in the corner.”

Cullen sniffed, and made a face. “Probably a dead rat or something.”

“We’ll see …” 

Bethany picked her way across the floor until the smell was nearly unbearable. The corner mostly held boxes, so she started taking lids off to look through them. “Papers, more papers, I can’t see anything here …” Just then, something caught her eye - a piece of cloth, jammed between two of the boxes. When she tugged at it, she realized it was actually a small burlap sack, heavy with something bulky inside. It was clearly the source of the smell; when she moved it, a waft of stink hit her nose and made Bethany choke. “Fuck,” she said, coughing. “What’s in here?” With a sense of dread, she opened the bag …

… and found a hand. A human hand. Two hands, actually, along with a pile of hair and something else covered in flesh that she didn’t quite recognize before she closed the bag and began to gag. 

“Bethany? What is it?” She couldn’t talk, so when Cullen made his way over to her, she simply thrust the bag in his direction. 

She’d seen dead bodies before. She’d sat in on autopsies, smelled decay before. But something about this - the jagged skin at the wrists seemed to indicate that the limbs weren’t severed neatly. When she looked at the burlap hanging in Cullen’s hand, she saw blood stains seeping through the side, she just wanted to vomit. This wasn’t professional work; this was torture. Most of Bethany’s work involved magic - death by magic was usually far kinder, in terms of the remains, than this was. 

Cullen swore loudly. Then, he set the bag down on a nearby chair and pulled a pair of rubber gloves out of his pocket. Bethany had her own set - she hadn’t started investigating crimes yesterday - but she was glad he was willing to reach into the bag and inspect the contents. She didn’t think her stomach was quite ready for it. When Cullen reached into the bag, though, he frowned, and brought one of the severed hands out to inspect it. “I think,” he said, “we’ve found Mharen. Or parts of her.”

When he held the hand out to Bethany, she could see part of a sunburst tattoo on the wrist, just above the jagged skin and bone. She swallowed hard. “It could be another mage,” she said, without conviction.

Cullen put the hand back in the bag. “Possibly. I’m sure the coroner can tell us for sure.” He reached into the bag again, and frowned. “And Ninette, maybe.”

“What?”

“We have two right hands here. Two different women.” He looked up. “There’s a ring. I’m sure Ghyslain could tell us if it belongs to her or not.”

Bethany almost didn’t want to know, but she had to ask. “There’s something underneath the hands. What is it?”

Cullen reached back in. “It’s …” He pulled his hand out quickly. “A jaw, I think. I can feel teeth.”

“Ew.”

“Yeah.” Cullen sighed. He seemed to be trembling - from the bag’s contents, or from the drug, she couldn’t tell. Maybe a bit of both. Bethany held out her hand, and he gave her back the bag without comment. She held the top tightly closed. “We should call this in.”

“We’ll need to get out of here. No cell service down here.”

Cullen nodded. “Let’s see if we can get out through the foundry.”

The foundry workers were surprised to see them - no one had come through that door that day, not that they’d seen, they told Cullen and Bethany. So, the mage’s escape route was still a mystery. “We rarely even use the basement these days,” the shift supervisor said. “It floods during storms, and the floors in the offices are so rickety that I’d be afraid someone was going to fall right through.”

“You should consider barring the doors,” Bethany suggested, “so that people from Darktown can’t get in and use it for their own purposes.”

“You think that’s who left all that disgusting stuff there? One of them Darktown bums?”

Cullen and Bethany looked at each other, but didn’t say anything. Their quarry was probably far from a Darktown bum, but there was no need to tell the supervisor that. 

They waited for the homicide detectives and the crime scene team in the supervisor’s office. As soon as the supervisor was gone, Cullen sunk down into his office chair and put his hands over his face. Bethany watched him with concern. He continued to tremble, his legs bouncing nervously. “You okay?”

He nodded, though his hands didn’t leave his face. “I’ll be fine. It’s just … shit, it’s been so long, I feel like a green recruit with his first dose of lyrium.”

“Do you need a doctor?”

“No.” His hands dropped to the chair arms, and he looked at Bethany. “No, I just need to get it out of my system. Nothing else to be done.” Suddenly, he chuckled; it was a tired sound. “I always wondered why mages didn’t get the same effects from lyrium. The Knight-Commander in Ferelden told us that it had something to do with your connection to the Fade.”

Bethany nodded. “I learned about that when I first went to Ansburg. Mages have a particular connection with the Fade - the prevailing scientific theory is that the lyrium we take just flows back into the Fade, where they theorize it came from in the first place. Templars don’t have the connection, so the lyrium just flows through your body with nothing to do.”

“Whatever it is, it sucks.” 

Bethany leaned on the desk in front of him and put a hand on his. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. I may be dead if you hadn’t given me the lyrium.”

She nodded. It was likely true, though she didn’t really want to think about it. 

Cullen took a deep breath, then wrapped his fingers around Bethany’s. “Listen,” he said softly, “I nearly froze in there. Back at Kinloch Hold … I got tortured by a desire demon. I still have nightmares. Seeing that thing in there - it almost got me. You saved me. So thank you.”

She almost protested that she hadn’t done any such thing, but looking at his face, that wasn’t what he wanted or needed to hear. So, she just nodded, and let him squeeze her hand a little harder. “You’re welcome.” 

After a moment, he gave her a shaky smile. “Hey. What are you doing when we get out of here?”

“Given that we’ll probably be giving statements and helping out for hours yet? Collapsing into bed. And filing the paperwork on this case. Maybe not in that order.”

He nodded. “That sounds about right, actually. Tomorrow, then.”

“Tomorrow? I don’t know … I don’t know if I’m going to have to leave, or if the Wardens will want to leave me on the case once it goes to homicide. But …” She smiled. “I’m pretty sure I’ll be around here tomorrow, regardless.”

“Dinner?” Cullen suggested. “I kinda flipped out the first time.”

Bethany smiled. “You know what? I’d like that.”

“Good.”

He kept hold of her hand until the other cops arrived. Bethany found she didn’t mind at all.

*

The next day, Cullen went back to the Gallows - alone, this time. He stopped into the Knight-Commander’s office first, as usual. “Lieutenant,” she said, by way of greeting.

“Ma’am.” He gave her a shallow bow. “I just wanted to let you know that we found Mharen’s … remains.” 

She blinked. “Murdered?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Your homicide department is looking into it, I suppose?”

“They are.”

“I’ll contact them. We should be involved in the investigation of the murder of one of our mages.” She nodded at Cullen. “Thank you for letting me know.”

There was a tiny voice in Cullen’s head that wondered why the Knight-Commander would be interested in Mharen only after she was dead. The voice sounded strangely like Bethany’s, so he quashed it. “Could you direct me to Ser Emeric?” he asked.

“I will inform him of Mharen’s death.”

“I’d like to do it myself, ma’am, if it’s alright with you.” The moment of rebellion surprised him, but he felt like he owed Emeric something more personal than a throwaway comment from the Knight-Commander.

The Knight-Commander raised an eyebrow. She waited a long moment before nodding. “Very well. He’s off duty this morning. Go to the templar’s lounge and ask after him.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” 

He found Emeric in the lounge, in discussion with two younger Templars. When he saw Cullen approach, his face fell - clearly, he knew what was coming. He waved his two companions away and motioned for Cullen to sit down. “You found her.”

 _Part of her._ But that wasn’t what the man needed to hear. “Yes,” he said simply.

“Did you catch the bastard who did it?”

“No, not yet. Her case has been turned over to homicide. They’ll find him.” Cullen sounded more confident than he felt. He and Bethany had seen next to nothing - a gray-haired man in a suit, and only from a distance. He could have been the murderer. He could have been an accomplice. He could have been nobody at all, though the appearance of the demon would seem to indicate otherwise. But no one was going to find him based solely on their descriptions. Cullen tried not to kick himself for it. He mostly succeeded.

Emeric sighed and sat back in his chair. Suddenly, his gaze narrowed, and he looked down at Cullen’s hands. “You’re shaking. Are you alright?”

No, he wasn’t all right. The withdrawal was starting to set in - hopefully, it would be easier than the last time he’d detoxed, given that he’d only had one vial. “Lyrium,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation.

“Ah.” Emeric nodded. “Do you want a few vials? I owe you at least that much, for giving me closure.”

It was tempting. Fuck, but it was tempting. If he could only get three vials, with the right rationing, he could put off the inevitable for a week. But it was, in the end, inevitable - better to get it over with now. “No, but thank you. I appreciate the offer.”

It took all his willpower not to change his mind as he walked away. But he was stronger than that. He would be stronger than that. Otherwise, he was lost again.

*

The Blooming Rose was hopping for a weekday at lunchtime. “Honey,” Viveka said, when Bethany commented on it, “haven’t you ever heard of a nooner?”

Bethany laughed. “I guess I have.”

She waited for nearly an hour, nursing a soda at the bar and fending off offers from several of the Rose’s other workers. Finally, Jethann came downstairs and handed a small bundle of bills to Viveka. When he noticed Bethany sitting near, he winked at her. “The house’s take.”

“I figured.” She stood up. “Can I steal a few minutes of your time, or are you booked?”

“For you? I have all the time in the world.” Jethann slid onto a stool beside her and waved at the bartender. “Did you find Ninette?” he asked softly.

Bethany thought of the bag of bones, and suppressed a shudder. “Unfortunately,” she said. “She’s dead.”

Jethann sighed. “I was afraid of that. Was it Ghyslain?”

“No. We don’t know who it was yet, but we know for sure it wasn’t him.” 

“I’m not sure whether to be happy that her husband isn’t evil enough to have killed her, or mad that I actually might have to feel a little bit sorry for him now.” Jethann shook his head. “No, I’m not going to waste my sympathy on the bastard. Poor Ninette.” He grabbed the drink the bartender offered him - another soda, Bethany thought, since he was on the clock, so to speak - and took a long sip. “Do I want to know?”

“No. You really don’t.”

“Fuck.” Jethann rubbed his forehead. “Thanks. For coming here, I mean. You didn’t have to. What the hell does a whore matter in the grand scheme of things?”

“You cared about her. You deserved to know.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did. It wasn’t some kind of romantic story or anything, but Ninette was a friend. She deserved better.”

“Yes, she did.” Instinctively, Bethany put her hand over Jethann’s.

He rewarded her with a small, but genuine smile. “Hey,” he said, “I don’t have another client for two hours. You want to come upstairs with me? It’s on the house.”

Bethany recognized the offer for what it was - a need for companionship. And for a brief moment, she was tempted. It wasn’t like she’d had a lot of luck in the sex area for a while. But as soon as she thought it, the memory of Cullen’s mouth on hers slammed back into her. “Sorry,” she said, “but I have a date.”

“With the hotass cop?” When Bethany blushed, Jethann laughed. “Score. He was sort of an asshole, but easy on the eyes. Will you come back and tell me how he is in bed?”

Bethany laughed. “Maybe I will.”

She left the Rose feeling a bit lighter than she had been. Why couldn’t this have been her life? Friends in Kirkwall, a date with a good guy … she could be happy like this, if it weren’t for the tainted blood coursing through her veins. Not for the first time, she cursed Marian silently for pushing her into the life she had now.

The route from the Rose to the police station took her through Hightown. After a moment’s hesitation, she turned her car at the corner of Plaza Drive and headed into the residential district. The houses got larger, the farther she went; she drove until she was across from a giant gray house, with pillars in front of the door and a garage big enough for four cars. The Amell mansion. Bethany hadn’t seen it since before Marian bought it; she remembered, back when they first moved to Kirkwall, driving up this street with Marian more than once. After their mother told them about the mansion, they just couldn’t resist driving by from time to time. It had been abandoned, after the previous owners defaulted on the mortgage. “We’re going to own it someday, Beth,” Marian said. “Just you wait. There’ll be enough room for each of the three of us to have four whole rooms to ourselves.” 

Well, Marian and Mother probably had six rooms apiece in there. And Bethany was stuck with a two-room apartment in Ansburg, a place that didn’t feel like home, because she never spent any time there. She lived in hotel rooms now, and in various Warden headquarters around the world. This house - this house belonged to another family, people she no longer knew. 

Immediately, she felt guilty for the thought. Her mother was here - just across the street from her, closer than she had been in several years. Bethany kept in touch with her mother infrequently; Leandra would email Bethany with pictures of the house as she continued to redecorate, and stories of Marian’s latest exploits. (Which were vastly edited for her mother’s consumption, Bethany knew, having participated in said exploits once upon a time.) Bethany couldn’t talk much about her work as a Warden, but she would occasionally reply with vague, inconsequential updates on her life - she’d talk about cities she’d been to, historical landmarks she’d visited, the occasional date she managed to score. Her mother told her frequently that the date stories were too few and far between. She wondered what her mother would think of her date that evening. _Well, Mom, I’m going out with this former Templar, who has a drug problem but kisses like no one I’ve ever met._ That would go over well, she was sure.

She could do it. She could have that conversation face-to-face with her mother, if she wanted. Leandra Hawke was likely right across the street, painting a spare bedroom or polishing the new mahogany stair rail. She’d be ecstatic to see Bethany at the door. So why was Bethany hesitating?

Suddenly, her phone rang. Bethany grabbed it quickly, shamefully happy for the distraction. "Stroud," she said, noticing the caller ID as she brought the phone to her ear.

"Bethany," he acknowledged. "I just got your preliminary report. Good job."

"We haven't found the killer," she reminded him. "There's still someone out there kidnapping and murdering women."

"The Kirkwall homicide department is more than competent. Now that they have evidence, I'm sure they'll get to the bottom of it. And we'll monitor their progress, of course." Magic was their purview, in the Wardens. No reported magic-related crime in Thedas went unnoticed. 

"Do you want me to liaise with the homicide investigation?" Bethany was surprised to realize she wanted to Stroud to say yes. A week ago, she wanted nothing less than to travel to Kirkwall. Now that she was here, she didn't want to leave again.

"No," he replied, and Bethany's heart dropped. "In fact, I have you booked on a flight out of Kirkwall this afternoon. We've got a case in Orlais I need you to work on."

"But this case -"

"You accomplished what I wanted you to. You proved magic was involved, and that the missing person cases were, in fact, homicide. You gave us a reason to keep our eyes and ears on the case. That's all you needed to do."

"But I'd like to see this through."

"If we hear of another case directly related to this one, we'll think about sending you back. But, for now, you're needed in Orlais. That's an order," Stroud added.

Bethany sighed. "Yes, sir."

"Your flight's in three hours. You should get yourself to the airport."

"Yes, sir." 

Bethany hung up the phone and looked across the street. There was no time, now - she wouldn't see her mother, or her sister. She told herself she wasn't disappointed. The heavy feeling in her heart was due to having to leave the investigation unfinished, nothing more. 

Maybe it had to do with something else, too. She redialed the phone - after five rings, a voice mail kicked in . "This is Cullen. Leave a message."

"Hi, it's Bethany," she said. "I ... I just got a call from my commander, they're sending me to work on another case. I have to leave ... well, now. So I'm going to need a raincheck on our dinner date." She hesitated. "I'd really like to do it some other time. Maybe I'll come back to Kirkwall the next time I get some vacation."

She took a deep breath, then rattled off her email address. "I'd like to hear from you. If you want. Email me. Keep in touch. Please?"

Bethany ended the call. She started the car and drove away - from Kirkwall, from her family, from her past. And maybe part of her future. "I'll be back," she murmured, unsure if she was promising herself, her mother, or Cullen.

Maybe it was a bit of all three. 

*

_Bethany -_

_I’m sorry you couldn’t stay for dinner the other night. I’ll give you a raincheck if you promise to cash it in sometime._

_I thought you’d like to know - we showed the ring to Ghyslain de Carrac, and he recognized it. So, Ninette was definitely one of our victims. But, the coroner says that the jaw belonged to a third, as yet unidentified woman. We’re going through some of our old missing persons cases, but without more than DNA and a jaw shape, it’s going to be next to impossible to find the unknown woman._

_The homicide cops won’t say the words, but I’m afraid we have a serial killer on our hands. It almost makes me wish I’d gone into homicide. I feel like I should be doing more to find this guy. But, I have my hands full finding other people right now._

_You know, I’ve typed and deleted half a dozen sentences here. I don’t know what I want to say to you. But I’m glad I met you. You remind me a little of someone I used to know back in Ferelden. But, at the same time, you’re nothing like her, which is a good thing. That probably makes no sense to you. It barely makes sense to me. But, the point is, I’m glad you were here._

_Keep in touch. I’ll be around._

_Cullen_

*

“Oh, how sweet! Thank you!”

The woman buried her face in the lilies and laughed. Her laugh was wrong - all wrong, too shrill, too high-pitched. But it wasn’t her voice he was after. 

“I’m so glad you like them. I thought a beautiful woman deserved beautiful flowers.”

“You’re making me blush. I’m too old for this sort of thing.”

“Never.” He smiled at her, looking straight into the blue eyes that matched his beloved’s so perfectly. “You’re never too old for a bit of old-fashioned romance.”

She giggled again, but he tuned out the grating sound. The eyes were all that mattered. All he wanted. 

“Would you care to go out with me tonight? I know a great, quiet place.”

A place they could be alone. Where he could continue his great work. _You’ll be immortal, my dear. A part of perfection._


End file.
